Gavin saluted Travis. “Hold the fort, Lieutenant. We’ll be back with the beer at fourteen hundred.”
“Holding the fort, sir,” Travis replied, returning the salute.
When they stepped onto the back porch, Travis engaged the deadbolt and waved at them through the dust-filmed window in the door, a hazy figure beyond the dirty glass, as if he were already fading out of their lives.
28
This was surely the last storm of the season, and a late one at that, but Nature worked hard at it, as though she’d taken a dislike to spring and intended to double down on winter. In the absence of wind, the small flakes fell in skeins, layering veils across the face of the day. Ramparts of evergreens, black in the hours-long twilight of the storm, stepped steeply up from the highway, obscured to such an extent that they looked less like masses of trees than like the bastions and battlements of castles.
Jane was aware of Hendrickson staring at her from time to time. When she turned her head to meet his eyes, he at once—and almost shyly—looked away.
Regarding his potential for violence, her estimation of him had proved correct. Neither had he made an attempt to escape, nor given any indication that he might be contemplating one. He remained as obedient as a machine—just as she had made him.
The effort to keep the highway open had been joined by road graders fitted with plows. They moved through the whitewashed day like raw-boned prehistoric creatures with phosphorescent stares. Trucks followed the plows, spreading salt across the pavement.
In spite of tire chains or because it lacked them, a vehicle occasionally slid into a roadside ditch or into a snowbank, where it was either abandoned or attended to by a tow-truck driver trying to free it.
Hendrickson whispered, “?‘The more it snows, the more it goes, the more it goes on snowing,’?” and though he smiled wistfully, tears tracked down his cheeks.
Jane suspected he was quoting from another poem he had learned in childhood, but she didn’t ask. Beyond the fact of his being now one of the adjusted people, his condition was so grotesque and his demeanor so disturbing that she didn’t want to be drawn further into his orbit than was necessary.
She yearned for the company of her child. Instead she found herself entangled with this strange man-child whose tortured history included being both the victim of abuse and the vicious abuser of others. And his demonic potential was still within him, still there to be called forth by anyone who discovered he’d been injected with a control mechanism and who knew how to command him.
At 1:10 P.M., about an hour and a half later than she expected, she arrived at U.S. Highway 50, a couple miles south of Carson City, and turned west toward Lake Tahoe. Ahead at a highway department marshaling yard, road-clearing equipment lined up to be refueled. She pulled off the highway, stopped, and made another attempt to call the Washingtons.
When she picked up the burner phone, Hendrickson turned his head away without being told to do so. He covered his eyes with his hands, like a small child seeking approval by doing more than was asked of him.
This time she got service. Down there in Orange County, the phone rang. Showers of snow ticked against the windshield, and the midday dusk seemed to darken by the moment, and the phone rang, rang, rang.
There could be a good reason why neither Gavin nor Jessie took the call. It didn’t necessarily mean trouble. There could be many good reasons.
Nevertheless, when she terminated the call and returned the disposable phone to the cup holder, her palms were damp with sweat.
29
Travis wasn’t scared about being alone. He really wasn’t. His dad had been a Marine, and his mom was FBI. He was a Marine-FBI kid.
The dogs were with him. They had teeth like sabres. They could rip up anyone. They wouldn’t rip up him, but they for sure would rip up anyone who ought to be ripped up.
And he had the pepper spray. He could protect the dogs if it came to that.
He was not as little as he looked. He had an Exmoor pony that he rode, and one day not too long from now, he would ride a horse.
Although he’d had a couple hours’ sleep in the backseat of the Rover the night before, he needed a nap. But he didn’t think it was a good idea to sleep.
So he ate another PowerBar to help himself stay awake, and he gave each of the dogs a biscuit. That used up five minutes.
Two hours was a long time. But not if he kept busy. There was a lot that needed to be done. The house was full of dust and cobwebs, and there were dead pill bugs in some corners.
He took a roll of paper towels and a spray bottle of Windex to the bathroom. They had used the Windex in the kitchen.
He climbed onto the counter beside the sink. He used the Windex and the paper towels to clean the mirror above the counter.
If you wanted to do something right, which was the only way you should do anything, there was a trick to it. His mom had taught him the trick. The trick was to care about doing a good job and not do it fast just to be done with it.
Queenie kept coming to the bathroom door to look at him. She wouldn’t come into the bathroom because the Windex made her sneeze.
Duke was going room to room, on patrol. Sometimes he passed the bathroom door, grumbling to himself.
Travis was working on the really dirty sink, trying not to think about who might have spit into it and what they might have spit, when a telephone rang somewhere else in the house.
Aunt Jessie and Uncle Gavin had said not to answer the door and stay away from the windows. But they didn’t say what to do if the phone rang.
He left the bathroom, Duke at his side, Queenie behind him. He followed the sound and found the phone in the kitchen. It was on the counter, next to the fridge.
It looked like the special phone his mom called on. She didn’t call often, only to say she was coming for a visit. And she always called at night, when he was in bed. So he’d never heard the phone ring. But he was pretty sure this was the phone.
He never talked on this phone with his mom. It wasn’t for long conversations. It was for quick messages and emergencies.
If it was his mom, he wanted to talk to her.
If it wasn’t his mom, if it was one of the bad people, then if he answered, maybe they would know where to find him.
The dogs stood one to each side of Travis, and all three of them stared at the phone.
The dogs’ ears were pricked forward, their bodies tense. They weren’t wagging their tails. The dogs didn’t seem to like the phone.
Travis decided to answer it anyway, just take the call and not say anything unless he heard his mom’s voice.
But as he reached for it, the phone stopped ringing.
30
The town of Borrego Springs is as far removed from Carter Jergen’s experience as any place on the moon. If he believed in Hell, he would call this a preview of that satanic kingdom.
The temperature report in the VelociRaptor dashboard readout claims it is 88 degrees. But as he and Dubose walk the downtown, such as it is, the day feels hotter than that. In summer it probably hits 120 degrees most days. The air is so dry, he repeatedly licks his lips to keep them from cracking, and his sinuses seem to be shriveling inside his skull.